Nuix lifts eDiscovery to new level

December 4, 2008: Australian eDiscovery pioneer Nuix has unveiled a major new release of its flagship software for searching and indexing email archives.

The ability to integrate with third party applications for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) or speech-to-text greatly broadens the range of content that can be managed by the Nuix eDiscovery platform.

“Rather than develop new versions of, for example, Optical Character Recognition software or speech-to-text applications, we recognise these things are not Nuix’s specialty and there are excellent tools already out there,” said Nuix CEO, Eddie Sheehy.

“Instead we made it possible for Nuix users to export documents or data sets to these programs then bring them back into Nuix for search and review.”

Nuix v2.16 provides the ability to automate steps like exports to OCR software, as well as daily index updates and customised searches.

New control features include the ability to add personalised metadata fields when indexing, allowing the user to make notes such as who started the eDiscovery investigation and include internal references that will make information even easier to find later on in the process.

Four additional export formats have been added and new process bars have been inserted at various points in the indexing, search and export processes. Additional statistics in the Fast Review stage will allow the user to track the case’s progress in other ways, by identifying how many colleagues have finished reviewing the data set, for example.

The global eDiscovery market is undergoing a major shift. According to Gartner, serial litigants, organisations in heavily regulated industries and companies with high levels of data or intellectual property concerns are looking to in-source the initial phase of the eDiscovery process. These companies are seeking to lower costs, diminish risk and gain strategic control.

Gartner Analyst Debra Logan has recommended that eDiscovery should be approached as a proactive, business process and that, order to do so, companies need the support of a platform. A wider range of organisations –- including government agencies, medium-sized corporates and litigation support agencies –- can also benefit from such a platform.

Proactive data management also means understanding that backing up all of a company’s data and storing it is not enough. The quality of the indexing is what gives an organisation power over its data set.

Nuix software already allows the user to search emails, documents, metadata and images in an identified data set in over twenty different ways. An additional feature of Nuix v2.16’s eDiscovery platform is the ability to search for items or data across an entire library of historical cases, or to search within multiple cases for P addresses, names, and fax numbers. This offers a way to seek out the one email address that appears in several historical cases and finally ties a suspect to his terrorist collaborators, or identify the internal source who facilitated a series of intellectual property thefts.

Said Sheehy, “Whether a company is regularly involved in litigation that makes the front page news, wants to manage smaller investigations and audits that still open them up to risk, or simply wants to proactively manage its data in today’s complicated compliance environment, Nuix is focused on offering fast and powerful enterprise licensable components they can use behind their firewall.”

Nuix was founded in 2000 and is owned by a group of Australian private investors, including the original founding family. The software is used worldwide including the European Union, China, Australia, Canada and the United States by organisations such as multi-nationals, government authorities, financial institutions, corporations, professional services firms and national law enforcement agencies.

Nuix v2.16 adds the ability to export documents and items which are password encrypted, have them decrypted by the tool of choice and import the decrypted information back into Nuix.

The integration capability also enables automation of activities within Nuix, such as:

• Automatically tagging/classifying documents according to own set of rules

• Automating tasks that formerly had to be manual tasks e.g. daily updates to indices, automatic searches

• Creating customised export formats.

An additional feature of Nuix’s eDiscovery Platform includes the ability to search for items or data across an entire library of historical cases or to search within multiple cases for addresses, names, fax numbers or email addresses etc.

The enabling architecture of this capability is a scripting engine, which allows users to create their own scripts or mini-programs to provide functionality not currently provided within Nuix. Nuix will provide a selection of sample scripts and is encouraging its power users to share their scripts with each other by creating a power users web environment and engaging this community online.

A demo version of Nuix can be requested at www.nuix.com.

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